Padilla Terror Trial Targets Islam: Lawyer

Defense charges prosecutors play on jurors' post-9-11 fears
By Heather McPherson,  Newser User
Posted Aug 14, 2007 5:20 PM CDT
Padilla Terror Trial Targets Islam: Lawyer
Jose Padilla, also known as Abdullah al Muhajir, who was arrested in an alleged plot to spread radioactive material across parts of America, is shown in this undated file photo. Padilla gave evasive or vague answers about his activities, contacts and travel in the Middle East when he was interviewed...   (Associated Press)

A lawyer for one of Jose Padilla's co-defendants accused prosecutors of turning the terror suspects' trial into a "US versus Islam" crusade to conceal a lack of evidence. Padilla, a US citizen, and two other men face charges of conspiring to murder and injure people in Afghanistan and Eastern Europe, as well as providing material support to Al-Queda.

Padilla was originally arrested for plotting to set off a dirty bomb, then held in a military jail for 3 1/2 years. But the charges in this civil case make no reference to a bomb plot, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, one defense lawyer charged that the government's case rests on clips of wiretapped conversations taken out of context and questionably translated from Arabic.  (More Jose Padilla stories.)

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